and there's still no point in what you've just said. if you're the kind of person who wants to change the past, you're probably the sort who'll carry on making a dog's dinner of the present, so you should probably try and sort that out instead.

It was fine for the time (except the food) but I much preferred living in a privately rented flat. Cost the same, didn't need to use halls as a crutch for meeting people any more and living independently is brilliant.

- Too many foreign students (alright, Farage) who only stayed for two months or so, and as a result, there wasn't a sense of community.
- Just so unclean in the kitchen (shared with 8)
- Slept with a neighbour on the second night. He had a boyfriend, who was a bit of a cunt, and in hindsight, he played me around like an upright bass (both metaphorically and physically). Was a bit depressing.
- Two people who jsut didn't make any effort to integrate. One always had her tea very early and would choose to watch The Chase over The Simpsons.

to live parts of your life again with the knowledge you have now. Something like beginning at Uni again would be a good place to start really. I would be a fit and healthy 18 year old lad, away from home for the first time. People being noisy and messy would piss me off even more than it did then, other than that the lack of responsibility would be great. I could actually go to University. I could not hang around with dicks for the first few weeks.

In reality I would just make a load of canny bets on football that I remembered the scores of and live like a king on my own. And cry about how shit the internet and TV are.

I used to buy snacks and keep them in my room so I wouldn't have to face entering the kitchen. My flatmates were even nice people (in my second place. I got bullied at my first place which was fucking typical). I also used to medicate with alcohol and have about 2 cans before leaving my room and facing inevitable, awkward small talk. Sometimes I used to just go out for meals on my own, and purposely stay away from my halls for as long as possible, because just being there made me feel depressed.

but in hindsight feel I was a bit young- the person I was at 25, in terms of confidence and not being quite so shy and stuff, would have enjoyed it a lot more than me when I was 18. Basically what I mean is I was a bit scared of girls when I was 18 and missed out on a year of casual sex.

Incidentally, is that cliche about not ending up friends with the people you first hang around with complete bollocks for anyone else? A group of 5 or 6 of us sloped off from our halls on the first afternoon to watch Soccer Saturday in the pub,and more than a decade later we're all still really close mates. We're either incredibly lucky, easily pleased or lazy. Probably all three.

Walked up the stairs lugging my stuff, three guys in the corridor who'd get there earlier said hello and lent me a hand, and they're still my best mates ten years on. Really weird to think how things would be different had I been on a different corridor or arrived at a different time or whatever.

at two different unis. It was boring both times, the majority of people have such banal interests that you're very lucky to find someone with enough shared interests to become friends I think. The second time was more interesting than the first cos it was at Goldsmiths, so obviously everyone is doing arts and humanities so you have a bit more in common than at Manchester (my first uni) where I was with loads of dull people doing science subjects and listening to dubstep.

Was in halls in my first year. Enjoyed it. Was in a (crappy) house with the same folk in the second year, then in a great house with different folk for my placement year. So far, so good. When it came to the final year, all my year 1&2 peeps opted for halls. I was having none of it and got a room in a house with a bunch of weirdo randoms. Was fun. So, nah, shared houses > halls.

I went to the on-campus option which was in small shared houses of 6. I don't think I even knew the neighbours on one side, it was hard to interact with people at random. So ideally I would be in the centre of town rather than the outskirts, and in a large set of flats where I could have met more people. Reality may have been different of course.